


Wilton's Bakery

by machine_dove, Sproings



Series: Wilton's Bakery 'verse [1]
Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bakery, Deaf Clint Barton, Depression, Disabled Wade Wilson, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kisses for Cookies, M/M, Physical Therapist Natasha, Terrifying Lawyer Maria Hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machine_dove/pseuds/machine_dove, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproings/pseuds/Sproings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an accident leaves him injured and unable to perform, Clint Barton's life seems bleak.  Things start to change after he meets the strangest man by accident (and he was in the circus, Clint knows strange).  Sometimes life's a trial, and sometimes you just have to hold on and hope you survive the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wilton's Bakery

Everything was gray. His mood, the sky, the walls of the waiting room, his dull and empty future stretching out in front of him, everything. Having that flat, oppressive cloud broken by a brown paper sack shoved abruptly in his face and wiggled was the very last thing he expected, so much so that it took him a few extra moments to process it.

He looked up to see a man with major burn scars on one side of his face and neck saying something, but his mouth was moving too fast for Clint to be able to read the words.

“Wait, just...one minute, okay?” He fumbled in his pocket for his new hearing aid, which was more trouble than it was worth most of the time. It was hard to focus on just one sound, and background noises seemed to take on exaggerated importance. The doctors told him it would get better as he adjusted to it, but they said that about a lot of things, and none of them had proven true thus far.

Finally locating it, he put it in his ear and turned it on. “Sorry man, couldn’t hear you. What was that?”

The other guy looked sheepish. “Sorry, I thought you were being an asshole and ignoring me, but I guess I’m the asshole here. You’d think I’d be used to that by now. I was asking if you wanted a chimichanga.”

“A chimichanga?”

“They’re fucking delicious. Our appointments seem to be at the same time, I’ve seen you here a couple of times and thought you looked interesting. So, food.”

“Uh, sure, thanks.”

Clint took the offered food awkwardly, not sure how to respond. At one time he would have known exactly the right thing to say or do to utterly charm anybody, but that was the old Clint. The amazing Clint. The Amazing Hawkeye, really, but The Amazing Hawkeye was gone, lost in the accident that left Clint hobbling with a cane and almost completely deaf. He could still shoot as well as he ever had, but nobody was going to come to the circus to see him stand in one place and shoot things, not after he had spent nearly two decades shooting while standing on the back of a running horse or while doing flips on a slack rope.

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to live his life without the spangles and the greasepaint and the thrill of performing death-defying feats in front of an appreciative audience, but a malfunctioning pyrotechnic display had shot off during his performance and that had been the end of The Amazing Hawkeye. He had successfully defied death, but the damage to his knee and hip were enough to force him into retirement. Ha, retirement. That sounded nicer than the reality was turning out to be.

At least this chimichanga was as delicious as advertised.

“Good stuff, right? I’m Wade, Wade Wilson, in because I never learned my lesson about playing with matches.”

“I’m...Clint?” He wasn’t sure what to make of this guy, at all.

“You don’t sound sure of that. Is that a fake name? Are you a super spy? I bet you hurt your leg while jumping from building to building chasing after some nefarious evil villain bent on world destruction. Like James Bond, but I bet you’d look a million times better in a suit than Daniel Craig.”

“I’m...here because I want to be able to walk again without a cane?”

“Again with the question. I have to admit, though, it’s a pretty sweet cane. You should get one with dragons on it. Hey, you can hit me with it if I annoy you! Am I annoying you? I do that a lot. Don’t play well with others. But I’m not trying to be annoying, I swear, I just like you.”

“But you don’t even know me.”

“Not yet, maybe, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”

Just then, Clint heard the nurse calling him back for his three-times-a-week torture session. They called it PT, but he knew the truth.

“I guess that means we’re out of time. I’ll see you around, Wade.”

Wade gave him a sloppy salute as he finished off his food.

Okay, so eating a chimichanga right before physical therapy had probably been a bad idea.

And trying to rush to the bathroom to puke when his hip felt like it was full of broken glass hadn’t worked out well at all.

And they wouldn’t let him help clean up.

And Natasha, his therapist, had been fucking pissed.

He was pretty sure he had kept some of the chimichanga down, though.

* * *

 

At his next session, Wade was there again, with another bag of takeout. Clint put in his aids.

Wade bounded over. “Hey, I brought more chimichangas. How do you feel about sour cream? I think it tastes like vomit, but in a good way.”

Clint chuckled in spite of himself. “Sour cream is all right. I’m not allowed to eat now, though. Natasha said she’d stab my eyes out if I hurl on her again.”

“Oh.” Wade looked down at the bag, as if it had betrayed him.

“How long are you in? We could meet after,” Clint offered. He’d disappointed enough people lately, and didn’t need to be adding to the list.

“Only half an hour, today. Working on fingers.” Wade wiggled his fingers, which had some impressive scarring. “You?”

“Full hour. Hip and knee. Sorry, maybe next time?”

“Why next time? I can wait. These’ll be cold by then, though,” Wade said, and he tossed the bag into the trash. He immediately looked like he regretted that decision. Clint was pretty horrified himself. Wasting food was the worst, even if he could afford to buy more, these days.

They both looked at the bag, sitting on top of who knows what. In a public trash can. In a hospital trash can, which was worse.

“I mean, how dirty could it be?” Wade asked, slowly reaching for it.

“They’re wrapped up in there, right? Should be fine,” Clint said, mostly believing it.

“Yeah. Fine,” said Wade. He opened the bag and took the chimichangas out, transferring them one by one into his backpack. “It’s not like anyone would have thrown away a bunch of spiders, and they all climbed up in the bag and then hid in the nice warm wrappers, and then we’d eat them and get crazy spider powers. Hey, that’d be pretty cool, actually. Did you ever wish you had spider powers? Because --”

“Clint, Natasha is ready for you,” the nurse guy called from the door. Nurse? Receptionist? Clint had seen the guy before, lots of times, but he didn’t know his name. Hadn’t even thought to ask, or to read it off the tag he wore. He’d just been another part of the gray, until now.

“Gotta go.” Clint propped himself on his cane and heaved himself up.

“Hey, break a leg,” said Wade.

“Already did,” Clint said once the pain of getting to his feet subsided enough for him to talk. “That’s how I ended up here.”

“It’s bad luck to say the other thing, though. I don’t want to be bad luck. You look like you’ve had enough bad luck,” Wade called after him.

Clint waved his free hand. “See you after.”

 

* * *

 

The nurse guy was named Cameron. And he was a nurse, not a receptionist, though he didn’t get too pissy about the distinction.

 

* * *

 

“You’re looking chipper this morning,” Natasha said as he came into her torture chamber.

Clint raised an eyebrow.

She looked him over. “You been eating in the lobby again?”

“Nope. Last thing I had was a protein bar, like eight hours ago.” He didn’t mention the coffee, because coffee wasn’t optional the way food was.

“You’re living off protein bars? Should I be sending you to a nutritionist?”

“Oh, yes, more doctors, sign me up.”

Natasha smirked at him.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m eating chimichangas later. Hopefully without spiders.”

“Hopefully? As in, there’s a likelihood there?”

Clint shrugged, but then Natasha gave him a look, like she might hurt him if he didn’t give more details. She was going to hurt him anyway, that’s what PT was for, but he told her about Wade.

She was easy to talk to. She’d seen some shit of her own. She’d never told him what kind of shit it was, which was part of how he knew she’d seen it. But she didn’t judge or get cloyingly sympathetic or go on about how brave he was. He wasn’t any fucking braver after the accident than he had been before, and Natasha understood that.

* * *

 

Natasha was a horrible person who had absolutely no understanding of pain or fatigue, and she was impossible to talk to.

Clint hobbled back out of the torture room, every step a new kind of agony. It was a wonder that anyone ever showed up for more than one session of this shit.

Wade was slumped in a waiting room chair, holding an ice pack in his hands, pretending to sing. At first, Clint thought his aids must be turned off or in his pocket, but no, Wade seemed to be doing some bizarre kind of silent karaoke, eyes closed, head thrown back, mouthing along dramatically to whatever was in his earbuds. The singing equivalent to air guitar.

Clint tried to figure out what song it was, but he wasn’t great at lip reading, and songs were one of the hardest things to read. Finally he gave up and nudged Wade’s foot.

Wade did a full body recoil that Clint kind of envied, flailing his arms as a distraction and twisting sideways to make a smaller target. His eyes flew open and when he caught sight of Clint, he yanked out his earbuds and sagged back into himself. “Fuck, I thought you were an axe murderer.”

“Why would anyone want to murder an axe? They’re very useful,” Clint said with a ghost of a smile.

Wade laughed.

When was the last time Clint had made anyone laugh? He tried to do it again. “What would you even use to murder an axe? Another axe?”

“Wouldn’t that be some kind of cannibalism? What are the moral implications of that?” Wade asked, grinning.

“I don’t think it’s cannibalism unless one of them eats the other one.”

“Oh, If you take the broken parts and duct tape them together you get a Franken-axe!”

“I don’t think a duct taped axe would be useful anymore, though. It’d be like trying to use a fork made of marshmallow.” Clint pretended his fingers were a fork, bending hopelessly as he stabbed at his other hand.

Wade cracked up, probably more than the joke deserved, flopping over sideways in his chair and earning himself a dirty look from Nurse Cameron. When he finished he grabbed his backpack and pulled out a chimichanga, which he handed to Clint. “No axes in there. Or people. No cannibalism of any kind. Unless, with the spider thing, but that’s only cannibalism if one of us is already part spider, so, no problem.”

The chimichangas weren’t quite as good cold, but they were still the second best thing he’d eaten that week, even if neither of them got weird powers from them.

Probably just as well.

* * *

 

On Friday, Wade flopped into a seat beside Clint and said, “So, what do you do when you’re not here?”

Clint just looked at Wade, face blank. “I...um.”

“No, seriously, you’re only here three days a week, what do you do with the rest of your time.”

‘I sit and stare at the walls and try not to think about everything I lost,’ Clint does not say. “I don’t really...do much,” is what he finally goes with.

“No? That sucks man, sounds depressing as hell.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

“That’s not going to work.” Wade looked thoughtful, an expression that Clint was already starting to find worrying. “We need to find you a hobby.”

The sound of Cameron calling him back for more torture made Clint feel like he had just dodged a bullet.

* * *

 

Natasha made him feel like he’d failed to dodge a bullet. Multiple bullets. An apocalyptic rain of bullets.

“Stop whining, it’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? _Not that bad?_ I think you just literally ripped my leg off. I’m afraid to open my eyes, I hate the sight of blood.”

“I hope you’re not planning on becoming a comedian, because you’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Fuck you, I’m hilarious. Wade thinks I’m funny.”

“Wade thinks the sun shines out of your ass and would like the opportunity to inspect it closer so he can be absolutely sure.”

“My ass is fucking magnificent, you’re just jealous. Is that why you’re trying to kill me? You hate having the second-best ass here so you’re trying to eliminate the competition.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to kill you, I’m trying to help you.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. Help doesn’t hurt this bad.”

She sighed as she released his leg and sat down on the chair across from him. Her face was blank, but her eyes were serious. “Clint. I am here to help you. I want to help you get to a point where you can walk without assistance or pain. I want to help you rebuild your life. I know it’s hard, and I know it hurts, but you’re strong enough to do it.”

He rolled to face the wall, back to her. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything.”

“Did I ever tell you what I did before I became a physical therapist?”

Clint blinked, not sure where she was going with this change of subject. “A professional dominatrix?”

“Funny.” Her voice had gone flat and hard, but Clint couldn’t make himself turn around to see what expression went along with it.

“I was a dancer, a ballerina with the New York City ballet. I had just been promoted to principal when some drunk asshole decided to run a red light. My knee…” She trailed off, and Clint found himself turning and sitting up almost without thought.

“I was badly injured, and my knee was wrecked. I knew before I even got to the hospital that I’d never dance again, not at that level, and I knew I could never be happy teaching dance to groups of miniature monsters.” She shivered lightly.

“Natasha…”

“It took six surgeries to put my leg back together, and more than a year of PT before I could walk without a limp. Dancing for me was always a way of pushing my own limits, seeing how far I could go. With PT, I get to help other people push their limits, so they can live the best lives they possibly can.”

She took his hand. “When I say I understand, Clint, it’s because I’ve been there on that table too. I lost the career I had trained for from the time I was three years old and had to rebuild my life at the same time I rebuilt my body. I can’t perform, but that doesn’t mean my life is over. And neither is yours.”

Clint just looked at her, shocked. The silence stretched out between them, fraught but not awkward.

“Yea, okay,” he said gripping her hand tighter. “Let’s do that again.”

* * *

 

It was a good thing that Clint had taken to leaving his hearing aids in when he was waiting for his appointments, because Wade didn’t even bother with a greeting today.

“KNITTING!” he shouted, stabbing at Clint’s face with what looked like something you’d use to kill a vampire.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, WADE?!”

“Oh, sorry about that. I was just excited. You need a hobby, and I need to work on my manual dexterity, so knitting! We can learn together, it’ll be great.”

“Knitting.”

“Yea, it’s perfect!”

“I’m not your grandmother, Wade.”

“Thank god for that. But no seriously, this is great, you just stab here, and strangle this needle, and BAM! It’s a stitch! And if someone pisses me off, I can stab them!”

“That’s...that’s great, Wade, but I don’t think knitting is for me.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll just have to keep trying, then.”

* * *

 

It was crosswords next, which just made him feel dumb, then coloring. The coloring was actually kind of relaxing, but Clint had no plans of ever admitting that to anyone. Origami wasn’t a total loss either, but they almost got themselves kicked out of the doctor’s office when Clint figured out how to make a bow out of paper and started shooting toothpicks at the other people in the waiting room. Cameron had not been amused.

They started meeting outside of their appointments after that, just a day or two a week at first, but it didn’t take many more weeks before Wade was over at Clint’s place nearly every night with a movie or a video game or, on one notable occasion, a board game.

They don’t talk about The Monopoly Incident. Ever.

* * *

 

He did not want to be here in this bullshit class, and if Natasha hadn’t literally strong-armed him into going he probably wouldn’t have bothered. Learning ASL made his deafness feel real, in a way the hearing aids (and the, you know, deafness) hadn’t.

Clint was deep enough in his depressed funk that he didn’t even notice Wade sitting next to him until fifteen minutes into the class.

He tried to communicate his confusion to Wade with a combination of eyebrow waggles and hand gestures that were probably not ASL before finally resorting to writing notes on the back of his class handouts.

_What are you doing here?_

Wade looked confused, but wrote under that, _I didn’t think you wanted to do this alone._

Clint just stared at him, overwhelmed. Wade pulled the paper back over.

_Stop staring at me, I’m trying to pay attention._

* * *

 

Clint checked his kitchen cabinets again, in case he’d somehow missed a bag of potato chips or something.

Nothing. Half a jar of peanut butter, and no bread.

Wade was going to show up, and there was no food.

There were spoons. Wade would probably eat just peanut butter from a spoon. Wade would probably be happy to eat peanut butter from a spoon, and would follow it up with some ridiculous story about feeding peanut butter to neighborhood cats. It seemed sort of inadequate, though.

Wade was his best friend.

That was a weird thought. He came around all the time, though. They hung out. Talked about things. Laughed at things.

Anyway, Wade should get something better than peanut butter from a spoon, and Clint had some hint of a memory about cookies with only three ingredients. He flipped open the box in the corner that he’d never unpacked, which was helpfully labeled ‘SHIT’. He had packed and labeled the boxes right after the accident, before he’d learned to stand again, and the tattered remains of his sense of humor had led him to label all the kitchen boxes that way.

The bathroom box said ‘JUNK’. The rest were unmarked.

He found most of a set of measuring cups, a big plastic bowl, a half burned candle, a box of tissues, a roll of tape, and a scattering of recipe cards. He sorted through them and found one that read:

1 c peanut butter  
1 c sugar  
1 egg  
350 10m

Clint had two eggs, as a matter of fact. They probably weren’t even expired. And he had a bowl full of sugar packets that might add up to a cup.

Fifty-two packets. That’s how many it took to make a cup. Clint wished he hadn’t counted. He mixed everything up and dropped spoonfuls of dough on the sheet and belatedly turned on the oven. When it was hot he put in the cookies and set the timer for ten minutes.

Wade was already sitting on the couch playing some video game with teddy bears. He looked up when Clint sat next to him. “I let myself in. Your locks suck, by the way. Want to go two player? A is jumpy, B is smashy.”

Clint took the offered controller and settled in. Wade’s shoulder bumped into his as they threw honey pots at attacking bats. “If we’re bears, why don’t we just use our claws?”

“Same reason we’re getting attacked by animals that only eat bugs. Unless those are fruit bats. Maybe we smell like fruit? Bears like fruit. Maybe we found an orchard, ate a bunch of pears, and then the bats got jealous.”

Clint chuckled. “Of course, that makes perfect sense.”

Wade grinned at him. “I can’t explain the flying flowers, though.”

“Flying flowers? Are they good guys or bad guys? Because -- “

The beep of the timer interrupted him. “Hang on,” he said, heaving himself up with only a moderate amount of pain in his hip.

Wade followed him to the kitchen and watched patiently, surprisingly patiently, while Clint slid the cookies onto a plate.  
Wade took one of the cookies when Clint held the plate out to him. He tossed it lightly from hand to hand between bites, a pained expression on his face, and Clint cursed himself for not thinking about the potential for burns. What kind of an asshole doesn’t remember that their best friend has scars all over his hands?

Wade finished the cookie, licked off his fingers, and then kissed Clint’s cheek.

“Whoa, what was that?”

“Kisses for cookies. Doesn’t everyone do that? I mean, not for store bought cookies, but you made these, so . . . Kisses. For cookies.”

“I don’t think anyone does that,” Clint said, laughing.

Wade shrugged and took another cookie. “I do that,” he said, and he kissed Clint again.

Clint bit into a cookie and his smile fell. “You think these need something?”

“Besides kisses? What did you have in mind?” Wade waggled his eyebrows with a goofy, flirtatious grin.

Clint rolled his eyes, but he grinned back. “Vanilla? Chocolate chips? Salted caramel?”

“Dude, I don’t know the first thing about baking, but I’d be happy to taste test if you want to bake more. Do you have any of that stuff?”

Clint looked down at his cookie. “No.”

“I could go buy it. Or we could both go. It makes you smile, we should get more stuff. I love cookies. Cookies are great. All the cookies. You want to go?”

“I, uh . . .”

“Your hip hurts. I’ll go. Be back soon.” Wade kissed him again and ran for the door.

“You didn’t even have a cookie that time,” Clint called after him.

“Downpayment!” Wade shouted as he closed the door behind him.

* * *

 

Clint really should have know that Wade would go overboard with the groceries.

“You brought back the entire store,” Clint said, wondering where he should put the canister of oatmeal. He didn’t have a designated spot for oatmeal. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever even owned a canister of oatmeal. The oatmeal he usually got was the kind that came in individual packets. He stopped himself from wondering how many of those it would take to make a cup. “You’ve got to let me pay for this.”

“You’re paying me with cookies. Besides, baking makes you happy and I like when you’re happy. Especially when you let me kiss you. I didn’t get everything though. There were about forty-eight different kinds of chocolate chips and I didn’t know which one you’d want, so I kind of panicked and got butterscotch chips, instead. Does butterscotch go with peanut butter?”

Clint blinked for a second, taking all that in. “Uh, I don’t know. One way to find out. Did you buy sugar?”

“Regular, brown, and powdered,” Wade said, finding the right bag and shoving it at Clint.

Butterscotch chips were really good in peanut butter cookies, as it turned out. Wade ate five of them, and he kissed Clint’s cheek after each one.

Coffee and peanut butter, on the other hand, was a remarkably vile combination.

“How can this be so bad?” Clint asked. “These both taste good, so they should taste good together.”

Wade shrugged and leaned in for another kiss, a half eaten cookie still in his hand. The cookie had flecks of undissolved instant coffee granules in it.

Clint leaned away. “Seriously, these are awful, I don’t deserve anything for this.”

“You still made them. It was still work,” Wade said, frowning.

“So much work, mixing ingredients together,” Clint said, rolling his eyes and miming a stirring motion.

“Exactly.” Wade caught Clint’s arm and kissed it, right on the elbow. “These really are disgusting, though. We should try something else. How do you feel about ginger?”

“With peanut butter? No, if we’re gonna do spices, we should start with cinnamon. We could roll some of them in cinnamon sugar, as a test run.”

“Anything you want, baby,” Wade said, handing over the mixing bowl.

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks, Clint branched out into shortbread cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and mocha cupcakes with espresso frosting.

Kisses for cupcakes were apparently not a thing (he wasn’t sad about that, he _wasn’t!_ ), but the cupcakes were fucking delicious.

The next time he made them, he baked snickerdoodles to go with them.

Cinnamon and coffee went really well together.

* * *

 

“You can tell me about it, you know. I mean, if you want to. You don’t have to.”

“Huh?” It was almost impossible to follow Wade’s mind the way it jumped tracks, and some days Clint didn’t even bother to try.

“The accident. You’ve talked about the circus before, but not that. I’m a pretty good listener.”

Which was surprisingly true, Clint had to acknowledge. “I don’t…”

“Or I can just kick your ass at Mario Kart, either way.”

“The HELL you say!”

There wasn’t much conversation for the next couple of minutes. Lots of cursing, shoving, and occasional hits at the other’s controller, but not conversation.

Clint looked up at the screen in dismay. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Wade pumped one fist in victory. “I TOLD you I’d kick your ass!”

“Dude. You got eleventh place, I’m not sure if you should be bragging about that.”

“At least I wasn’t last. Unlike _somebody_ I could mention.”

The pillow that hit him in the face seemed to take him completely by surprise, to Clint’s smug satisfaction, and they ended up curled up together laughing until they couldn’t breathe. Once they finally stopped, minutes later, Clint wiped the tears from his face and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. His head ended up on Wade’s lap rather than the pillow, but it was too comfortable for him to bother with moving.

“It was just an ordinary show,” he said quietly. “Just another show. Shouldn’t have been anything unusual about it at all, just the usual routine, the usual crowds, the usual applause. I was up on a slack rope doing tricks, shooting at moving targets. Can’t have a net for that, but I haven’t needed one for years. Or wanted it, really. It’s a different feeling, being up that high with nothing between you and the ground but your own skill and control. It’s like death’s there behind you, keeping you sharp and crystal-clear, aware of absolutely everything that’s happening.”

He shifted slightly and looked at Wade directly. “You understand that, I think.” Wade wouldn’t meet his eyes, but it didn’t matter, not for this. “Something went wrong. I learned most of this after the fact. At the time it felt like the world exploded, and then nothing. Something cosmic, like the big bang. Heh, bang.” That was a painfully weak joke, even for him.

“We had pyrotechnics, fireworks, sprays of sparks and things that were set to go off at different points during the show. The middle of my performance was not supposed to be one of those points. I guess the maintenance crew had gotten slack with their routines, hadn’t been doing the checks on them they were supposed to have been doing for months. That probably wouldn’t have been enough by itself, but the charge on one was wrong, way too strong. There was a glitch, it went off early, and the equivalent of a small rocket exploded too close to where I was at. Boom, crash.”

Wade’s hand was on his head, fingers stroking through his hair. That was nice.

“Maria was in the audience and saw the whole thing, and I guess she took it kind of personal. Followed me to the hospital, bullied her way into my room, terrified enough details out of people at the circus to get management good and scared. They didn’t like her much when she started with the scary lawyer words, and they liked her less when she presented them with enough evidence to get them shut down for good if they were stupid enough to end up in court against her. I...shit. I have more money than I ever thought I’d see in my life, Wade, and I’d give it all up in a second if it meant I could have my life back.”

If he buried his face in Wade’s stomach and finally let himself cry for what he had lost, well. Nobody else had to know.  


* * *

Life turned gray again.

Everyone always thought there was a reason.

There wasn’t.

Some days were just dead and grey. Some days he was filled with nothingness. Some days he didn’t get up at all.

Some days, he woke up the next morning (or possibly afternoon, he didn’t know yet) and realized that he’d ignored everything he cared about.

This day, he found a glass of water and a protein bar on his bedside table. Propped against the glass was a notecard that had a crayon drawing of a stick figure holding a giant flower.

The stick figure had pointy cat ears and a wiggly tail.

Clint unwrapped the protein bar and chewed methodically as he checked his messages. Natasha was either very worried, or very pissed. Probably both.

Wade was . . . Wade. He’d left eight text messages, most of them indecipherable. Wade’s texts were almost always indecipherable, because he had shitty dictation software, and the scars on his fingers made it hard for him to use tiny phone keys. Between his texts and Clint’s hearing, phone communication was something of an adventure for them.

One of Wade’s messages said **ukelele?** Another said **I’m word about u**.

The most recent one said **B O K**. Clint typed out the reply, **Doing better. Thanks for the food and water.** He hit send before he could wonder too much about whether he was actually doing better.

He wandered to the bathroom. Did what he had to do. Didn’t shower or brush his teeth. Not that much better.

The bed was still warm, he could tell just by looking.

Would it really matter if --

Why was Wade here? He was standing in the bedroom doorway holding his phone, and his hair was sticking out at all angles like he just woke up.

Clint signed, “WTF?”

Wade signed back. Clint caught the word couch, but not much else. Finally Wade gave up and made his stupid puppy-eyes face and tugged Clint’s arm.

They spent the next few hours watching pirate movies with the captions on and eating oatmeal cookies. About forty minutes in, Clint put in his hearing aids, for the explosions.

He was pretty sure the cookies had pecans in them, and he’d never seen ones at the store like that. When Wade brought in their second plate, Clint asked, “Did you make these?”

“Yeah. There was a recipe on the internet. You said one time that the raisins always burn and turn into dog turds, so I left them out and put in nuts instead. I figured that way they were almost like real food. You know, because protein. And I thought about adding ginger, but you always say --”

“Wade,” Clint said, not able to take the chatter right now.

Wade pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.

Clint was an asshole. He wished Wade didn’t know it, but clearly Wade did. Still, maybe -- Clint leaned over and lightly brushed his lips against Wade’s cheek. “For cookies,” he muttered.

Wade stared for a second, then he grinned and did a wiggly little dance on the couch.

Clint rolled his eyes and went back to watching the movie. But he moved the cookie plate, in case Wade wanted to sit closer. Which Wade did, filling up the empty spot as soon as he had the chance.

* * *

 

“So.”

Clint waited for the rest, but that was all Wade said. He looked unusually nervous, almost shy.

“So?” Clint prompted.

“I was thinking…”

“Always terrifying.”

“Shut up! I’m trying to be serious here. Really. I was thinking about, you know, the future. I’m not going to be on disability forever, and you probably don’t want to just sit around playing video games all the time, right?”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. “Right.”

“So I talked to a buddy of mine, and he helped me put this together.”

‘This’ turned out to be a surprisingly thick bundle of papers, complete with cover sheet that had a crayon drawing of-

“Is this a dinosaur eating a lobster?”

“No! That’s you, making a pie, and I’m over here putting cookies in the oven.”

On second viewing, that was a much more reasonable interpretation. “Wilton’s Bakery: A Business Plan” was surprisingly comprehensive, with more graphs, figures, market analysis numbers, and financial data than Clint could process on one read-through.

“Wade, what is this?”

Wade looked away, body language uncharacteristically closed off. “It’s a business plan. I mean, it’s fine if you hate it, it was just an idea, but I thought, maybe…”

He trailed off again.

“Maybe what,” Clint prompted.

“Maybe we could go into business. Together. As partners. You - you like baking, and you’re amazing at it, and you’re happier when you’re mixing together ingredients and experimenting than I see you almost any other time, and I thought that it was, maybe...something you’d like to do. With me.”

Clint was stunned, not only at the amount of work that had gone into something that Wade was brushing off as just an idea, but at the depth of insight it demonstrated. He felt open, exposed, like he had been cracked open and reassembled into an entirely new shape that he hadn’t even suspected was possible.

“This…” He trailed off, overwhelmed and unsure of what to even say.

Wade put his hands up. “Don’t even worry about it, it was just an idea. A silly one. I mean, who’d even want to run a bakery anyway?”

“I would.” The words were easy this time. “Wade, I...this is perfect. I haven’t really been thinking about the future, at all, and I don’t think I would have ever dreamed something like this, but now that you’ve put this idea into my head I can’t imagine doing anything else.” He flipped back through the pages, looking at the financial data in particular. “I definitely have enough to cover the initial capital.”

“Well, yea,” Wade said as he ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I’ve been paying attention. And you wouldn’t have to pay for the whole thing, I have some capital to invest as well, and I think we can qualify for a small business loan through the VA because I’m, you know, a disabled vet and all.”

“This is amazing.” Clint flipped through a couple of more pages. “Wait, you want us to _buy a building?!_ ”

“Maybe. There’s this one I was looking at, in a decent area. Needs some reno work, especially upstairs, but it’s zoned for both commercial and residential, so we could run the bakery on the ground floor, and have an apartment upstairs. Cut down on the commute, get you out of this shithole. Then here, you see,” Wade flipped to a later page, “Projected future plans, we finish the renovations upstairs and end up with a couple of apartments we can rent out for additional revenue.”

“Wade, how did you even do all this?”

“Told you, a buddy of mine. They do stuff like this at the VA all the time, it’s no big deal.”

“It is. It really, really is.” Clint felt his eyes start to water and covered them with one hand. Wade had seen him cry before, from pain or frustration, but this felt different. He felt Wade scoot closer and put an arm around him, and he leaned into his warmth almost instinctively.

“I’m with you, Clint, whatever you decide.”

* * *

 

Lawyers were terrifying, and paperwork was going to be what finally killed him, Clint decided.

* * *

 

“A bakery? You and Wade, making food and expecting humans to eat it?” Natasha smiled like that was the funniest thing in the world.

“Fuck you, my chocolate espresso muffins are a goddamn delight,” said Clint, more than a little defensive.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Did someone other than Wade tell you this?”

“Two lawyers, and our accountant,” Clint shot back. They hadn’t actually said that, and Wade actually had, but the muffins were delicious.

“You have an accountant? For your bakery. With Wade.”

Clint shrugged. “It was part of the business plan. ‘Wilton’s Bakery.’ We even have a logo.”

“Why Wilton’s?”

“It’s our names. Wilson and Barton. Barson just sounds stupid.”

Natasha tilted her head at him. “I take it all back. Enjoy your bakery. Hell, if you manage to make decent gluten-free doughnuts I’ll be in there every morning.”

“Gluten-free, like that Atkins hipster shit?”

Clint had always wondered if Natasha secretly wanted to kill him. The good news was, with the the way she looked right now he never had to wonder again. Also, he possibly needed to find clean pants.

“Yes, avoiding things that make us sick is super trendy.”

“Sick?” said Clint. Wasn’t gluten-free some diet thing? “Like, sick how?”

“None of your fucking business,” said Natasha. “Is there some threshold of suffering I have to live up to to get your approval on what I eat?”

“No! Jesus, stop with the murder face, let’s just get back to the torture.”

Natasha flashed her most evil grin and went to the rack for a medicine ball. Oh, fuck, the medicine ball was the worst.

Clint distracted himself by shooting off a text to Wade - Gluten-free donuts?

Almost immediately, he got back the reply - Any sing four you baby.

He flipped the phone around to show Natasha, hoping she might go a little easier on him. She raised an eyebrow and said, “He calls you baby?”

Clint shrugged. “I think he calls everybody that.”

“Right,” said Natasha, and she chucked the medicine ball at his head.

* * *

 

Clint tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. The first night in a new place was always hard, and this one was harder than most for a lot of reasons. He pulled the pillow over his head and groaned in frustration.

The unexpected hand on his arm triggered every defensive instinct that years of pranks and worse at the circus had instilled in him. He swung out with his fist, hand still holding the pillow, only to find it blocked by...Wade?

“Wade, what the fuck man?”

Wade answered, but it was dark enough that he couldn’t make out the words on his lips. Clint reached out to his bedside table and fumbled his hearing aids back in.

“I repeat, what the fuck?”

“We should cuddle together for warmth.”

“Cuddle?!”

“Did I say cuddle? I meant huddle. We should definitely huddle together for warmth.”

“Wade, it’s August, and the AC isn’t going to be hooked up until next week.”

“I might die, Clint. Hypothermia is a very serious matter.”

Clint huffed a laugh as he pulled his aid out and fell back on the bed. “Whatever, man.”

Wade wasted no time climbing under the blanket and laying his head on Clint’s shoulder. Whatever he might have said, this definitely qualified as cuddling.

This really wasn’t what he’d planned when they’d moved in together. Not that Clint had planned to move in together, either, especially not in the middle of renovations. It just sort of happened. It had all made sense at the time, and only seemed strange in hindsight, like so many things involving Wade.

Hell, even lying here with his arm around Wade (when had he put his arm around Wade?) made its own kind of sense. It was something more interesting to think about than where his new-found life savings had gone. Okay, not more interesting, but less terrifying, at least. Moderately less terrifying. Maybe.

Clint thought about the pile of forms Maria had made them sign this morning that listed him and Wade as ‘partners’, and he surprised himself with a laugh.

Wade shifted, and Clint could feel him say something. Didn’t know what, though.

Then Wade’s finger started tracing a shape on Clint’s chest, slow enough for Clint to finally make it out as a question mark.

“Tell you in the morning,” Clint said.

Silhouetted against the moonlight from the uncovered window, Clint saw Wade’s hand raise with a thumb’s up.

* * *

 

Clint had never even been inside a restaurant supply store before, but here he was in the parking lot, about to buy supplies for his bakery. Well, their bakery. Wade was already climbing out of the car, with the same enthusiasm he had for seemingly everything. Clint sighed and followed him.

As they approached the door, Wade must have noticed Clint’s nervousness (who the hell just buys a bakery? what had he been thinking? this was bound to be a shit show of epic proportions.).

“Hey, can I hold your hand?” Wade asked.

Clint rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t think you weren’t. I -- Nobody here has seen me. They’re all going to stare. And, you get sort of used to it, but . . . It’d be nice to pretend, sometimes. That they were staring because I was with the hot guy, instead of because I look like the after picture of Gollum’s visit to Mount Doom.”

Clint was struck speechless for a moment. He’d never seen Wade so vulnerable before.

“Like the Wicked Witch in a rainstorm,” Wade added, his perpetual grin sliding back into place. “Like I made out with a xenomorph.”

“The hell is a xenomorph?” Clint asked.

“The aliens from Alien,” Wade said, and he made a kind of jaw snapping gesture with his hands in front of his mouth that made Clint chuckle.

The thing was, people did stare. Clint usually felt invisible when he was next to Wade. He could dress as an evil clown, and nobody would notice, all of them too busy gawping at a few scars.

Not that he had ever considered dressing as an evil clown. He didn’t miss performing that much.

When Wade finished being an alien, Clint reached out and took his hand. It was cold, in spite of the August heat. Wade’s circulation must be absolute crap. His skin had that bumpy soft texture that burn scars always got, and Clint found himself running his thumb over it, learning the contours. It wasn’t like anyone else’s.

They bought sheet pans and half sheet pans, cupcake tins, madeline tins, loaf pans, mini loaf pans, angel food pans, pie plates, fluted tart pans with removable bottoms, mini tart pans without removable bottoms, rolling pins, pastry brushes, huge rolls of parchment paper, bread knives, paring knives, chef’s knives, carving knives, cleavers, (what the hell did Wade need cleavers for? did he want to know?) cutting boards, three kinds of spatulas: the rubber scraper kind and the spreading frosting kind and the flipping pancakes kind.

Holding Wade’s hand was not just to make Wade feel better, by then. The bill was going to be appalling. And they still had to buy food.

* * *

 

Clint was jolted awake by the feeling of Wade’s goddamned ice-toes running up his calf. He was not fucking kidding about the hypothermia.

“How can you be so cold?” Clint mumbled.

Wade turned over and pressed his face against Clint’s chest. That was . . . different. Over the last few weeks Clint had gotten used to sleeping with Wade’s back against his chest. (Okay, maybe that wasn’t conventional, but neither was Wade. Neither was Clint, for that matter. They made it work.) But now Wade’s face was there, instead. And he seemed to be talking. Clint could feel little puffs of air against his skin. “Was I supposed to hear that?”

Wade shook his head.

“Are you worried?”

Wade sat up, and there was just enough light to see the surprised and slightly concerned look on his face.

“It was just a guess. You literally have cold feet.” Also, their grand opening was tomorrow, and that was enough to make anyone worry.

Wade laughed, but then his face fell. He started talking again. He put his hand on Clint’s chest and shook his head, then pointed to himself and made a blowing up gesture.

Miraculously, Clint had some idea what that might mean. “Neither of us is going to fuck everything up.”

Wade didn’t look convinced.

Clint grinned. “The worst that could happen is that we set the building on fire.” Oh, excellent way to reassure the guy who has burn scars all over him. Nice job, asshole. “But that’s why Thor installed such a great sprinkler system. It’ll be fine. C’mere.”

Clint pulled Wade back down and patted his shoulder. “It’s only a half day, anyway. And we’ll finally get to use the pole. You’ve been waiting all week to do that.”

They hadn’t even discussed the addition of the fireman’s pole between their apartment and the kitchen downstairs. Wade had shown Clint a crayon drawing of it, and Clint had nodded, and that was it. Just like the secret door at the top of the stairs, disguised as a bookcase. Clint had shown Wade the pictures he’d found online, and Wade had nodded, and that was it. Each change to the original plans just had Thor smiling and reaching for his sledgehammer. That was a man who really, really liked to swing a hammer. Clint wasn’t sure that was how building contractors usually behaved, but it wasn’t like he had any basis for comparison other than weird television renovation shows that seemed to take place in an alternate universe.

Wade put his arms around Clint’s waist and squeezed.

Clint squeezed him back. He was glad he was there. Wade was weird, but he was also insightful and kind and strong. He was a really good friend, and Clint was just happy to have him there. “We’ll have fun. You’ll see.”

They’d had separate beds at first, but Wade had never gone back to his after that first night, and one morning Clint had tripped on it and said, “Why the fuck is this piece of shit here if you never use it?”

That night, the bed was gone and there was a nice empty space in their room.

Whatever, they made it work.

* * *

 

“You’re just going to stand there and watch?” Clint said, pressing a ball of dough flat. He folded it over, turned it, and pressed it flat again, for the thirty-eighth time.

“Yes,” said Wade. “You have to do all the kneading.”

“What the fuck, why?” It didn’t occur to him until after he’d said it that maybe Wade’s hands weren’t up to the task.

Wade leaned back against the door frame. “Because kneading makes extra gluten! I can’t get gluten all over me and then go make gluten-free muffins. Natasha’s so tiny and frail. A molecule of it might kill her dead.”

Forty-one. Forty-two. “Natasha is about as frail as a Mack truck.”

“One molecule, and she keels over. And I know you don’t want Natasha dead.” Wade shook his head as if even the thought of it was tragic.

Clint considered saying that he didn’t want anyone dead, but they both knew that wasn’t true. Forty-five. Forty-six. “I have to go to therapy with her. Is that gonna kill her?”

Wade shrugged. “Not unless she puts your fingers in her mouth. And then I might change my mind on the killing her thing, so that’s no problem.”

Forty-nine. Fifty. Clint set aside that ball of dough and reached for the next one. “Uh huh. And the no sleeves thing?”

“Fabric is easily contaminated,” Wade said. “I’ll just stand watch, keep the perimeter secure.”

Four. Five. Six.

Wade sighed. “Also, you rock your hips when you do that, and your ass is fucking magical.”

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Clint couldn’t disagree. His ass was pretty magical.

* * *

 

Some days, Clint wasn’t sure if Wade actually knew what a bakery was supposed to sell. Some days, Clint wondered if Wade wasn’t actually some kind of goddamned alien.

Alien or not, he was the most infuriating business partner in the world. Clint loved his recipes, both the ones he had learned as a child on the road, and the ones he had developed himself, using careful trial and error. There was something beautiful in the precision and control of measured ingredients and timed reactions, something that tapped into the same part of him that would train on a slack rope for hours and hours to master a new trick.

Wade was the exact opposite of precision and control. Some days, Wade was a fucking disaster. Sometimes he’d start with a cookie recipe and end up with muffins that nobody sane would ever eat. Chipotle and caramel was not a combination that should ever be found in a pastry.

Luckily, they seemed to have developed an decent following of weird hipsters with no tastebuds, who lined up to try Wade’s Concoction of the Day. Sometimes, they even came back for seconds.

On other days, there were Wasp Cookies, which were exactly what they sounded like.

“But Clint,” he had said. “These are big in Japan!” He had actual citations for it, even. They were, in fact, big in Japan.

“So are vending machines that sell used panties,” Clint shot back.

Wade responded with his best puppy-dog eyes, which were very good indeed. Clint had even less power to resist Wade’s puppy eyes than he did actual puppy eyes.

“FINE! Just...make sure the wasps are gone before Fury’s supposed to come for our health inspection next week. And you’re cleaning everything. And cooking dinner tonight. And if I get stung you’re going to have to make it up to me.”

“YAY!”

* * *

 

The Wasp Cookies were a disaster, except among the food bloggers and the groups of fratboys who dared each other into eating them, two groups that usually didn’t have much overlap.

For months afterwards people would come in asking if this was the place that sold the Wasp Cookies that they had seen on the internet. Being Internet Famous was weird, but people usually didn’t leave empty-handed, so it worked out okay in the end.

* * *

 

Between the people who came in for Wade’s creations, the normal customers, and the high-energy business types who lined up first thing in the morning for Clint’s special espresso pastries as they scheduled meetings or traded stocks or whatever the hell it was they did with the smartphones that seemed to be surgically attached to them, the bakery was actually managing to make a decent amount of money. Not anything to really crow about - they spent far more on ingredients than Phil thought reasonable, but Clint was less functional at 3AM than a baker should be, and had dropped more than one flat of eggs before he finished his second pot of coffee. It had been made abundantly clear by Health Inspector Fury that they were not allowed to use those eggs, no matter how quickly they scooped them off the floor. Even if they picked out all the eggshell. But still, they were turning a tiny profit, and with it came a sense of accomplishment that Clint had missed.

(Wade had learned to brew the first pot of coffee while Clint was in the shower - if he started it early enough, he had time to brew the first pot, change the grounds, and pour the coffee back in to re-brew. It tasted terrible, but it did a better job of waking Clint up than regular brewed coffee alone.)

* * *

 

“GODDAMIT WADE, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!” Clint was waving around the paper-wrapped...thing he found in the walk-in. It was...squishy. And the smell was indescribable, which was really saying something considering he had spent most of his life living in close quarters with animals and people who thought personal hygiene was a suggestion and not a requirement.

“My haggis!” He sounded delighted.

“Why the fuck do we have haggis in a bakery?”

“Haggis doesn’t need a reason, Clint. Haggis just _is_.”

It said a lot about what his life had become, Clint thought, that this somehow made perfect sense.

* * *

 

Clint looked up when the bell over the door rang, announcing another customer. It was one of his regulars, and how great was it that he had regulars? Pepper was an executive of some kind who wore shoes that made Clint’s feet hurt just to look at them, and came in once a week like clockwork for a pastry after what was apparently a particularly stressful regular meeting.

She also placed regular orders for large pastry trays, which made Phil happy. (Being an accountant must suck, if that’s the kind of thing that makes you happy.)

“Clint! I need…”

“Whatever chocolate but no strawberry, right?” He was already plating a cupcake for her. “This is dark chocolate with salted caramel swirled in - Wade’s been playing with different kinds of salt this week, and I decided to steal some from him for the good of the world.”

Wade had just walked in with a fresh tray of hopefully undoctored croissants. “I knew it! I knew you absconded with my supplies, after so cruelly defaming my salted lemon pickle bread.”

He put the tray down and kissed Clint on the cheek. It happened so frequently now that Clint barely noticed.

Pepper’s eyes crinkled as she smiled and handed over the money for her cupcake. “You two are adorable. How long have you been together?”

“We’ve had the bakery here for almost four months now,” Clint said with some pride.

“But how long have you two been dating?”

“Dating? We’re not...I mean...what?” Clint waved his hands around, more than usually flustered.

“Wait, we’re not?” Wade looked genuinely confused. “I thought we were dating.”

“Wait, what?”

“Clint, we live together. We bought a business together. I learned to bake.”

“I...but...what?”

“I brought you chimichangas on our first date.”

“That...that was a date?”

“It was supposed to be, but I’ve never been so great with the romance stuff I guess.” Wade rubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “But I mean, we cuddle. Every night.”

“I thought we were huddling. For warmth.”

“It doesn’t count as huddling when you’re the big spoon every night. That’s definitely cuddling.”

“I...but…” Clint sputtered, searching for words. “But...sex!”

“I’m just...going to go now?” Pepper couldn’t hide her smile as she retreated out the front door.

It was Wade’s turn to blush. “I didn’t think you were interested. Thought you might be asexual or something.”

Clint blinked. “Dude, no. I like sex. I like all the sex. Are...you asexual?”

“Pansexual. I also like sex. With you. I would like sex with you.”

“Were you just planning to go forever without it, like some kind of monk?”

Wade just looked at him, unusually serious. “You’d be worth it.”

Clint kind of felt like the foundations of his world were shifting. He’d been in an earthquake once, and it felt a lot like that. He opened his mouth to protest, to insist that he wasn’t worth it, that he was a disaster and an absolute wreck of a person and that Wade shouldn’t be wasting his time.

“I kind of want to kiss your stupid face now.”

Wait, that wasn’t what he meant to say. Wade’s smile was blinding, though, and it entirely distracted Clint from trying to convince him that he really, really wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice.

“You should do that. You should definitely do that. A lot. Any time you feel the urge,” Wade said as he stepped closer. Clint’s hand was on his face, rubbing his thumb across one scarred cheekbone, and when did his hand get there?

“You really want me?” Clint whispered, so close to Wade now that his eyes were all he could see.

“Yes,” Wade breathed, and closed the distance between them.

* * *

 

The next week they debuted a new cupcake in the weekly rotation, called simply The Pepper. It was made with dark chocolate and quinoa flour and flavored with pink peppercorns, with champagne buttercream and a sprinkle of pink Himalayan sea salt. Wade gave Pepper a dozen of them free of charge when she came in for her usual treat, and managed to eat half of them himself while he updated her on how his relationship with Clint had changed.

“And he does this _thing_ , with his…”

“I really, _really_ don’t need details.” She put her hand on top of his. “Are you two happy?”

Wade looked over at Clint, who was cleaning up some mess he had made on the counter and had a coffee stain covering almost the entire front of his apron.

“You know, I think we are.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Kisses for Cookies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230340) by [Sapphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy)




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